Can you believe this drawing actually puts my life at risk? Can you believe it? Rather than condemn those who would harm me, there are cowardly fools much more likely to scold me for drawing it. Can you believe that, too?
Okay, then.
Here’s my drawing of The Prophet Muhammad.
Uh oh.
Did you just now feel a tinge of fear, maybe a lot?
If you’re reading this in a public place, did you look around to see if anybody saw the drawing? And—by anybody—I mean someone who appears, you know, swarthy.
Are you thinking it’s unsafe to read this blog post?
Did you say to yourself, “The fool endangers us all!”?
Did you perhaps whine in an unbecoming manner, “He shouldn’t mock a religion”? By which, of course, you really mean only Islam. Any Christian denomination is fair game.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, blame yourself, but recognize it’s also the result of our collective Western cowardice. That I dared draw a stick figure representation of the Prophet Muhammad frightened you—in the goddamn twenty-first century, no less. That it actually does pose a very real risk to our safety is staggering in its implications, both to us and our enemies. That rather than enrage us and spur us to action against such absurdity (not the drawing but the fanatical Muslim reaction—just making sure), it instead accentuates our embarrassing meekness and foolish acquiescence, which should make us ashamed—and ultimately dooms us.
If I were to instead claim this drawing is The Pope, it’s hard to imagine that any of the more than one billion Catholics in the world would hunt me down to cut my throat. Certainly, there would be no media interest in such banal mockery.
If I say it’s the Angel Moroni, I reckon my risk from any of the tens of millions of Mormons doing me harm is likewise zero. The Dalai Lama—zero. Mary Baker Eddy—zero. Billy Graham—zero. Martin Luther—zero. Jesus Christ—zero. The Christian god—zero. Buddha—zero. L. Ron Hubbard—well, that’s also getting into some crazy shit, so maybe not quite riskless.
But the Prophet M., now that’s an insanely legitimate risk.
Over a stick figure drawing.
Western societies, and those not so lucky but who yearn for our freedoms and way of life, are in danger from fanatical Muslims who embrace in a death-grip a patently anti-Western ideology, which is also cannibalistic, since it’s likewise directed against those reasonable Muslims who object to their toxic form of Islam.
This danger is real. These fanatics make no secret of their intentions: The implementation of a totalitarian Islamic caliphate wherever they can and the destruction of those who would resist them or fail to conform wholeheartedly.
Many of our so-called leaders refuse to understand, accept, or acknowledge the bizarre reality of Islamic extremism and its inherent threat to good people. The love-trumps-haters are hopelessly delusional, and essentially suicidal, fully intending to take the rest of us down with them. Therefore, it’s up to the rest of us not to lose sight of this reality that actually exists—in the twenty-first century, no less. Remarkably, some of our so-called leaders—ones, I might add, who are sworn to uphold the Constitution, including the First Amendment—would admonish me for my drawing and its deliberate provocation.
Yes, scold me for exercising my basic human right to free speech over…a goddamn stick figure drawing.
These amoral jellyfish are so hell-bent on proving to themselves and their ilk that their souls are free of so much as a molecule of Islamophobia, that they’re willing to sacrifice their culture, their freedoms, the lives of their citizens, and the lives of non-extremist Muslims who don’t want to die either.
Our academic leaders are equally cowardly.
Should I somehow garner an invitation to speak at a university about my artwork, there are actually matriculated fascists who would protest the gig and demand the invitation be rescinded—anti-free speech thuggery which fancies itself as youthful enlightenment. The childish snitishness of these college Brown Shirts is an amazing thing—and not in a good way. I do not jest when I say the day will come when many of these useful idiots will blame the Jews for their student debt loads—and the diversity-equity-inclusivity-loving cult shall embrace this most boilerplate of scapegoats.
Ironically, under the Caliphate’s rule, these anti-free speech students are in as much danger as the rest of us, if not more so; you know, being enlightened and all that. More likely than not, the university administration would cave into their absurd demand to quash my talk.
Over a stick figure drawing.
Yes, the absurdity is staggering.
And yet few—a precious God-blessed few—reel at all.
I don’t know which group is the worst of the worst: (1) Psychotic religious fanatics who would harm me over this picture; yes, over a stick figure drawing that purports to depict Islam’s main prophet, there are actually Muslims full-on willing to commit physical harm, even murder—and far too many Muslims who’d then cheer at the crime; (2) Wussies who are hell-bent on not acknowledging the evil and idiocy of the aforementioned demented mindset, and instead of courageously standing up to it, they sheepishly await the Islamic chopping block all the while wailing that we should respect other belief systems (i.e., non-Western, non-White, non-Christian, non-Republican, including ones that threaten violence and intend to carry it out) and, heaven forbid, not cause offense—and they mean this to include, yes, the above stick figure drawing; or (3) Phony-baloney free speech advocates who, when the moment of truth arrives (and a big moment is indeed here), quake and cower and equivocate rather than man up to defend our preeminently important right.
I’m not going to be silenced.
How about you, dear reader?
Gather round, children, for I’m now going to share with you a terrible truth: The right to offend, blaspheme, disrespect, mock, ridicule, satirize, spoof, question, provoke, culturally appropriate, or push the boundaries of decorum is The Right to Free Speech, since “inoffensive” speech needs no such protection. If you cannot accept this truth, and, more importantly, value it and courageously defend it, then you are a coward slinking down the road toward losing the Right to Free Speech for all of us, including yourself. (Many aren’t slinking at all, but rather dancing blithely down the primrose path to totalitarianism. They gleefully want censorship and thought control.)
Should that happen, don’t for a moment think your other rights won’t be in jeopardy.
They damn well will be.
Big time.
The bottom line is excruciatingly simple: So-called phony-baloney respect for other religions (i.e., Islam) under these circumstances is nothing more than abject fear and its attendant cowardice, which is not going to result in more safety, respect, understanding, or happiness in the world. Quite the opposite is assured.
Christian and Jewish extremism are debated, and their pernicious tenets challenged. The risk to public safety and cherished freedoms that these mindsets occasionally pose is readily acknowledged. Not just by nonbelievers but by the much larger segments of these religions that oppose the twisted ideology embraced by extremists within their midst.
But due to abject cowardice and an entrenched pathological political correctness, there are those who do not apply the same scrutiny to radical Muslims who are far less an outlier within Islam than fanatic Christians or Jews are when compared to their basic theologies. Furthermore, I’m not aware of entire neighborhoods or cities or countries, anywhere in the world, where masses of Christians or Jews regularly conduct violent protest on behalf of their religions, as happens all too often in Muslim countries. Mere rumor of a Koran burning brings out masses of Muslim men (always men) who then carry out unbelievably absurd acts of violence, including what can be characterized as lynchings.
I’ll reiterate the terrible truth: Christian and Jewish extremism are discordant outliers that appall the vast majority of these faiths; Muslim extremism is not.
Christians are regularly offended by artists, among others—it’s okay to offend or take offense—but even when they are provoked to outrage (often deliberately), the actual peril of physical harm to the offending artist is virtually nonexistent (these artists full well know this, though they fancy themselves courageous risk-takers); in fact, the smug scolders among us often laud these artist as brilliant, daring, provocative, and cutting-edge, and scold the indignant Christians for their narrow-mindedness and, get this, threats against freedom of speech and artistic expression.
Famous examples of appropriate (to the smug enlightened) and protected artistic provocation include Andreas Serrano’s “Piss Christ” photo of a crucifix immersed in the “artist’s” own urine, as well as Chris Ofili’s painting, “The Holy Virgin Mary,” made partially out of elephant dung. I’ll also add that brutally offensive anti-Semitic cartoons are common in the Muslim world.
Perhaps the brilliance of Messrs. Ofili’s and Serrano’s “artistic” manifestations is derived from unresolved potty-training trauma that is somehow lost on my unappreciative sensibilities. Maybe someday, “I’ll “get it.”
Regardless of the target, I insist such works are protected free speech in the United States—this doesn’t mean the artists are entitled to accolades or public funds in support of their endeavors, nor do they have the right to barge into a restaurant, stand next to my table, and stick either of these foul creations in my face (dung or urine would probably violate a health code or two).
But to keep my own hypocrisy to a minimum, I must defend their right to artistic expression; for example, at a private gallery or posted on the Internet or in a book at a bookstore. If the artists are otherwise gainfully employed, I must resist the urge to contact their employers and demand they be fired from their jobs. I’d certainly do my best not to vandalize and loot the downtown of a large city in response to their artwork, which for some inexplicable reason are the unfortunate places that cretins regularly victimize with their immature displaced rage (e.g., the BLM riots).
In these present times in the United States, such works of art aimed at religious provocation largely target Christians. You can bet the mockers of Christianity aren’t going to insult their beloved Dalai Lama or any indigenous mumbo jumbo. A stridently enlightened comedienne quipped right before Christmas 2015 that Jesus was “gender fluid.” Oh, how hip and current event-y—and utterly safe. I wonder if she’d have the balls during Ramadan to say that you-know-who is likewise gender ambiguous. If she did decide to impress me and crassly mock the Prophet Muhammad, her equally enlightened friends would accuse her of being an Islamophobe, accompanied by the requisite self-indulgent scolding.
My advice if you’re a Christian, though it may be hard to stomach: Show the world that you and your god are strong, brave, thick-skinned, and respect freedom. Show that you’re better than the radical Muslims. I recommend that Christians grit their teeth and realize that freedom of speech and thought and, yes, belief, are as important for their own well-being as it is for any artist, and if there is an almighty God, He cannot be harmed by anything we humans can concoct, certainly not trivial works of art or vulgar satire. And, of course, this same advice applies to non-extremist Muslims as well.
I find it hard to believe that a god would trouble himself to vengeance over human speech or artistic expression or other supposed sacrileges; if anything, I think amusement is a more likely reaction, if we can indeed assign such an emotion to a deity. Burn a Bible, Torah, or Book of Mormon, burn a hundred or a thousand of each—these are but flea bites, if that, to a god.
I’m betting Allah feels the same way if a Koran were torched or otherwise desecrated. Why should He care when we can always print more?
Allah’s followers are another matter entirely.
Big time.
This is fantastically easy to prove—and schadenfreude-y for the rest of us, to boot! All the would-be iconoclasts need do to enhance their Upper West Side, Georgetown, Nob Hill, or Pacific Heights avant-garde bone fides is sponsor the same two aforementioned artists to embrace a couple of audacious tweaks and create two new and equally brilliant versions of their edgy works of art. That is to say, rather than poking Christian symbolism in the eye, immerse the Koran in pee and pair an image of The Prophet Muhammad (I assume much better than my amateurish work) with pachyderm poop.
Good luck with that.
Nice knowing you (not really).
The Pope will scold you—like he foolishly did Charlie Hebdo magazine after its employees were slaughtered by Islamic extremists. Your enlightened friends will abandon you. Formerly sympathetic pundits will flip out. Cowardly politicians will, well, cower.
The Muslim fanatics will come for you.
You shall know real risk—and meaningful, utterly justifiable fear which you will be unable to shed until such time as a massive Muslim reformation occurs and this religion’s unhinged adherents cease acting like damn fools.
Recent events have taught me an important lesson: Whatever your god, He, She, or It should possess a sense of humor and respect our corporeal right to freedom of speech and expression.
The way forward if we are to avoid the misery, destruction, and terror caused by religious extremism and other thought-speech control fascisms is painfully simple. It is certainly not a requirement for less mockery, but both the right and the courage to do more of it. And endure it when directed at our holy bovines.
When this sort of politically incorrect speech or expression is done without fear of harm, you have yourself a free society.
I offer up the ultimate celebration of such freedom: An art exhibit stocked with works mocking every conceivable religion, including those held dear by indigenous peoples and global warming fanatics. Better yet, make it a traveling exhibit. When it can be shown in every country on Earth without fear of thuggish interference, childish disruption, or the evil of physical harm, the world shall be proven a fabulously better place for all mankind. Not utopia, but definitely better.
Good luck with that, too.
Allow me to offer more advice—and yes, there is, at least initially, a risk of untoward consequences if it is followed, including physical harm and death, but to not do so is to guarantee a never-ending, if not escalation, of the insane current state of affairs perpetrated largely by Muslims (and another religion mentioned below); i.e., even greater amounts of senseless harm, unnecessary misery, and unjustified death, a Caliphate of Woe that many fools mistake for paradise.
Here goes—
No person is under any obligation to adopt, respect, or accommodate a religion against their will or under the threat of violence. No religion possesses the right to avoid mockery, sacrilege, heresy, blasphemy, apostasy, skepticism, disrespect, or disbelief from non-believers or even its own members. No religion has a right to force a non-believer or believer to follow or respect its tenets. No religion has an inherent right to harm or commit crimes against non-believers or its own members. No religion has a right to silence the speech of non-believers or its own members. No religion has the right—or obligation—to oppress others on behalf of its deity. No religion has a right to compel a government to adopt or implement its tenets, and this includes the designation of public lands as holy sites or off-limits to the general public, for to do so is to force non-believers to obey or honor a religion that is not their own. (The latter includes those who blocked the building of a telescope atop a “sacred” Hawaiian mountain—a telescope meant for science, no less.)
Since I first wrote much of the above in 2015, in response to the murderous attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, a far greater threat has arisen. We face not just the risk of an Islamic caliphate—which now seems quaint by comparison. We face the very real risk of a Woke caliphate. And, boy, even the radical Muslims should fear this one.
Wokeism is a religious cult. Mindless and fanatical and dangerous. Imbued with the oh-so-smug certitude that makes atrocities not just possible, but obligatory. The Woke, like the Muslim fanatics, insist on absolute ideological purity—or else. The Woke desire their own caliphate: a forcibly implemented theocratic dystopia of miserable sameness. Sameness in word, sameness in deed—and, most importantly, sameness in thought. Like fanatical Muslims, the Woke harm those who they deem heretics, blasphemers, or apostates. They seek personal destruction against nonbelievers and anyone who dares challenge their god or pay it insufficient homage; a god who is merciless, wrathful, and irrational.
The Woke cult is a vile combination of childishness and ruthlessness. They want infidels fired from jobs, expelled from schools, de-banked, kicked off payment platforms, prevented from selling books or giving speeches, and deplatformed from social media sites. They are willing to use and condone physical violence (arson, looting, assault) in furtherance of their religious aims. The Woke have not yet rolled out the chopping block or set aside piles of stones, but do not naively presume that they’d never resort to executions or death camps. The Woke are most certainly capable of that level of evil. Their transfascism sect sterilizes and mutilates children and adults. Their global warming sect wants economies destroyed, far fewer human beings on Earth, and absolute control over the lives of those allowed to remain. They truly believe they’re saving their own souls by destroying the lives of others.
Do not doubt the vehemency of the Woke. Consider, if instead of claiming my drawing is of the Prophet Muhammad, I declared it is a caricature of an iconic trans-identifying male and put this caption beneath it: “Dylan Mulvaney is a man!” It is not hard to imagine we’d see roiling insanity from the transfascists and their enablers. They’d declare it “hate speech” and “violence”—a stick figure drawing with a snarky caption—and they’d be fine and dandy if I faced meaningful consequences as punishment for my heretical audacity. Keep in mind, these are the same fascists who want people put in jail for accurately gendering someone, or as they call the crime, “misgendering.”
We are well down the road to a Woke caliphate. I hope enough of us man (and woman) up damn soon. It is an irony of ironies that Muslim parents in Michigan are fighting the Woke’s toxic influence on our children’s schools. God or Allah bless them.
We must fight oppression regardless of who are our oppressors. Whether the jihadists be Muslims, transfascists, or global warming alarmists. Do not allow their religion to provide them the justification for their nefarious actions. Do not let them get away with silencing, controlling, and otherwise harming nonbelievers. Call them out and fight them, as if your very existence depended on it, because it damn well does.
Decent people of every race and religion must do their part. Defend free speech, which means speech you don’t like. Defy transfascism (even if you’re trans-identifying). Defy the global warming alarmists. Fight to keep despicable policies and age-inappropriate materials out of your children’s schools.
Those who stand around and do nothing to prevent a heinous crime are as guilty as the actual perpetrators. Likewise, the cowards who stand silent and allow others to commit horrible acts on behalf of their gods. If we fail to display the courage required to fight this madness, and do so now, then perhaps we deserve to be damned to whatever hell our Maker has fashioned. Or damned to the Woke Caliphate that awaits us.
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